[Icecast] Strange occurrence

[Dick Trump]

Maarten makes some poses some valid questions:
> Did you check the Linux machines for system and/or update logs at the
> given time? 
 
I'm afraid I don't know all the places to look for logs that might tell me something.    My script that keeps MPG123 running keeps a log of all reboots and outages.  A reconnect that lasts less than one minute is counted as continuous outage.  

Looking more closely at my server's error.log, sorting the entries by client,  during that 10 minute span (actually only 7 minute),  the actual outages recorded as only a second long and from 2 to 4 drops per client.   One of the drops occurred within a second of each other on 5 machines.  

> Maybe there was a power surge and the machines rebooted? 

No.  The client machines were in 5 different locations, hundreds of miles apart.

> Or  maybe a network switch was at fault? 

The only switch in common was at the server.  The three Windows clients that stayed up went through the same switch and were at 3 equally spread out locations.

> Maybe a new kernel was installed that  required a reboot? 

No reboot was logged in the log my script creates.

> What I know of FC is that they do have kernel updates
> every once in a while, and those updates naturally require a reboot.

I'm on FC1.  I don't think that kernel is in development.  I'm sure they didn't reboot.  I would have a log entry of that.

> (And, if your machine has been running for months, checking hard disks
> will probably take a few minutes, 10 wouldn't be that unusual.)

But all on the same date?  These machines were started on completely different dates in different cities.  All are 13 GB drives with only 12% in use.

I'm still focusing on a cron job being responsible.  But it is a curiosity thing only.  I don't see a long term problem.

Based on the fact that the actual drops were so short, I'm guessing that some process that did run on a cron somehow fooled my detection procedure for a dropped connection.  I know that it isn't perfect but it does work.

I'm even further convinced that there was nothing in Icecast that was responsible.  It has been incredibly reliable.

Thanks for your input.

Regards
-- 
Dick
dtrump1 at triadav.com